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Featured Artist

"We are inspired by our artisans and their beautiful work. What we most like about our work is being able to share our creativity and working together with the talented women weavers."

"Hello, we are Diana and Maura. We are entrepreneurial, positive and hard-working Guatemalan women. We create handbags and accessories that feature Guatemala's beautiful handwoven fabrics and want to make them known to the whole world.

"We are in awe of the creativity of the artisans who collaborate with us. Often, entire families work together, helping one another and creating the same kind of handwoven fabrics. When we became interested in combining new materials and contemporary styles with our traditional textiles, we learned from trial and error.

"We got help from an artist friend who creates handbags, and he taught us about the craft process and quality. Several Maya weaving cooperatives shared their knowledge of textiles with us.

"We work with leather, which we combine with embroidered textiles and handwoven brocades, lovingly created by women artisans in groups and cooperatives across the country who all share their distinctive regional weavings.

"We are inspired by our artisans and their beautiful work. What we most like about our work is being able to share our creativity and working together with the talented women weavers.

"There are always challenges, and handcrafted work takes more time than we'd like. We work with at least three families in addition to the cooperatives. The women earn a good living and are a positive example to their daughters. We've seen how their children are able to go to school and have better nutrition. We hope this project will keep growing, allow us to include more people and families and create a bigger creative group."

Your support makes a real difference to the lives of artisans.

Buana

Bali and Java

Before his days with NOVICA, Buana sold his jewelry designs door-to-door in the tourist areas of Bali. Business was tough, and local store owners were often slow to pay. All this changed when he joined NOVICA 7 years ago.

Buana now employs 28 of his neighbors to keep up with demand, and can now afford to send both of his children to school.